


Five Senses

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: fire_fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-05
Updated: 2008-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:49:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney's barely a blur in the margin of John's peripheral vision, but it's all he needs to know that Rodney's tired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Senses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [autiger23](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=autiger23).



**sight**

Rodney's barely a blur in the margin of John's peripheral vision, but it's all he needs to know that Rodney's tired. When he turns his head his instinct's borne out – it takes Rodney two tries to cap his pen and his shoulders are rounded, the hair at the back of his neck standing up on end from sweat and fingers that sought out an itch. His t-shirt's rucked up at one side, showing skin above the waistband of his boxers, and he fusses at the irregularity of it, pulls at the fabric, wanders off to the bathroom and John can hear the water run. John stuffs his own clothes in the duffel bag he uses to stow laundry, kicks his boots under the bed, takes off his watch, heads for the bathroom himself. He could stand to take a leak, brush his teeth, do whatever – but then Rodney's in the doorway at the same time he's trying to go in and they pause, Rodney blinking at him as if he's strange and exotic, a confusion to a brain half-asleep. "Um?" Rodney says, and waves a hand, takes half a step forward and – carefully, thoughtfully – lets his forehead fall against John's shoulder. "Mmmph," he huffs.

 **touch**

John thought love and sex were the same for the better part of twenty years, an honest mistake that earned him a marriage, divorce, three break-ups that fucked with his head more than he wanted, and too many nights spent staring at the ceiling, trying to distinguish between affection and afterglow. He'd shared a bed with men and women who could make him choke out curses and grind against the mattress in shameless need, but it ends up it's the thud of a forehead against his shoulder that he'd never looked for, the clue he'd never bought. Shifting his feet a little, the better to bear Rodney up as he leans, he lifts a hand then lets it fall, turns his head instead and kisses the tip of Rodney's ear. "Sleep," he murmurs, and Rodney lifts his head, peers at him blearily, says, "Duh?" and pushes past him, shuffling toward bed.

 **smell**

The bathroom smells faintly of sweat and dirt, strongly of peppermint, and John hones in on the toothpaste, brushes his teeth with his eyes half closed and his pulse thudding steady. He runs the faucet – the water here smells sharp and clean, different to the chlorine-tainted tap water in Colorado, or the dirt-sweet kind hauled up from the well on his grandparents' farm – rinses his mouth, rubs at his face with a wash cloth, sniffs at his armpits and swipes them for good measure too. The light turns off behind him, motion sensors doing their job, and he pads across the room to the bed, to the rumpled side that belongs to him, beside the heap that's Rodney, feet twitching rhythmically beneath the sheets. John eases in beside him, stretches out on his side, nose pressed whisper-light but meaningfully to the skin at the top of Rodney's arm. Rodney smells of fading deodorant, vinegary marker pens, cotton grown warm and damp in the summer heat; smells familiar and wanted; smells like the company John wants to keep.

"Stoppit," Rodney murmurs, and John smiles, feels the stretch and give of his own face like comfort, says, "Make me," and rubs his nose over the spot where someone once vaccinated Rodney against TB.

 **taste**

"You are _so_ annoying," Rodney grumbles, rolling onto his side so that they're facing one another. His face is in shadow, his hair already a porcupine fuzz backlit by moonlight, and John keeps smiling, snakes a hand beneath their pillows and mumbles, "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Rodney says, and leans forward, presses his lips to the corner of John's mouth. "Infuriating really." He kisses his chin. "Awful." The divot beneath John's nose. "Can't think why I . . ."

"Shut up," John says pleasantly and finds Rodney's mouth with his own, groans softly, barely there, when their tongues touch and he tastes the shared mint of their toothpaste, the salt and heat of Rodney's mouth that mixes lazily with his own. They can do this forever, John's found, especially when they're tired; nibble and suck and nudge kisses into the creases of stubble and age until they're breathless with it, smug as teenagers, wound carelessly into each other's space.

"Fnnaagh," Rodney says intelligently, wet lips sliding clumsily to John's cheek, making John laugh.

 **hearing**

"Tired?" John asks, raising a hand to graze some sort of understanding against Rodney's jaw; he knows the answer, hears it below the scornful huff Rodney offers as reply. He shifts just enough to rest his head on his own pillow, to let Rodney burrow into his own, but Rodney rolls onto his back, fingers still a muddle with John's, sighing with something like contentment.

"Yeah," Rodney says, sounding wistful. "Yeah, I'm – "

He yawns, and John can't help but yawn too, eyes closing, darkness flaring blue and green behind his eyelids, his knee warm where it's pressed against Rodney's thigh. Outside water rushes and retreats; beside him, Rodney hums three notes of important news, grumbles, and relaxes, his face turned toward John's.


End file.
